Message From the Last Libertarian

A Letter to the Editor of The Match
Taken from Issue #86, Summer 1991
P.O. Box 3488
Tucson, Arizona 85722

Dear Fred: I'm a 1967-style Libertarian, and that seems to have little in
common with the "Libertarians" we've picked up since 1980.

You have no idea of the corruption that entered the "Party of Principle."
Reason Magazine sold out. The great anarchistic "Mr. Libertarian", Murray
Rothbard, joined with an arch-fascist; most state-level positions have been
lost to the conservatarians. Why? Because the right-wingers had so much more
money than the left-wingers. They were able to flit about the country and
create a controlling clique that people without money couldn't keep up with.

Many Libertarian organizations have gone under. USA Today recently ran a guest
column supporting the beating of that guy by the Los Angeles Cops. The writer
was a newcomer who repeatedly called himself a "Libertarian".

Like the writer of the Summer 1990 editorial in The Match, I too
have swerved from hating government to hating government-lovers.

I love the editorial response to Mike Hall in the letters column of issue 83.
I've worked my ass off since childhood at junk jobs because of the very
conditions mentioned. Correct: too many of these pseudo-Libertarians have had
it too easy in life. I had to collect bottles at factories at age five and I
was shoveling coal in basements at age nine, but according to these
pseudo-Libertarians who spent those years playing, I'm poor and they're rich
because I didn't work as much as they did. An inverted crazy-quilt world made
by people who inherited while demanding that others earn and
don't even want to face it.

But remember, if nine out of ten Anarchists are really secret government
informers who misrepresent Anarchism, that still doesn't mean Anarchism is
what they say it is. I'm a Libertarian, and a lot of these other guys aren't.
Having more money, they can make everybody think they are Libertarians.

One of my biggest problems is with "inheritance." On the one hand I do not
support inheritance taxes as they strengthen the State. On the other hand, I'm
sick of hearing Libertarians and Objectivists say how everything in life must
be earned and then they look away and whistle when I say, "True, but how about
inheritance? It's not earned."

Perhaps it's because having been born along the East River in New York City,
I've never known what it's like to be middle-class and to have the necessities
of life handed to me so I'd be set up in life. I've never known any Ayn Rand
fans to be Hank Reardens themselves; they seem to be born owners, not renters.
I've watched my fellow libertarians sell out as they got older; they no longer
care about personal liberty, just economic freedom. They liked to play at
being poor by dressing and living "ratty" while in their early twenties, but
quickly joined the establishment when their parents helped get them set up in
polite society.

Personally, I think the whole Capitalism vs. Socialism argument is a red
herring. We're still in medievalism. You tell me what class your daddy was and
I'll tell you which one you're in - just like the twelfth century. First, we
get out of medievalism, then with everyone starting off equally, we'll see
about the Capitalism vs. Socialism bit.

However, you would be doing the real Libertarians a favor if you called these
pseudo-Libertarians by their true name: Conservatarians. How would you like it
if government-lovers started calling themselves Anarchists and proceeded to
embarrass true Anarchists? These phonies, Conservatarians, are far more
interested in profit than liberty, that's for damn sure. Don't blame us
because these rich bastards came in since 1980, expropriated our name and
disgraced us. It was just like LaRouche taking over the Chicago Democrats.
Most people who came in since 1980 are phony and many of those who came in
during the '60's sold out - but there are still some real Libertarians left.
Don't hurt us by letting them get away with stealing the word
Libertarian. At least help us by calling them pseudo-Libertarians or
Conservatarians.

These pseudo-Libertarians like to mock the idea of a diligent person being
homeless. Diligent? I used to load boxcars in the rain for minimum wage.
Considering the rents nowadays, how the hell does one pay them? The modern
jerks won't admit to themselves that their parents greased their way through
life. It was nothing they did. People I know, including myself, now live in
places doubled-up, without even heat or running water. And we're grateful for
even that much. Thank goodness for libraries and their warmth between junk
jobs. Thank goodness for college shower rooms that one can sneak into to get
clean.

More Conservatism posing as Libertarianism - using the average income
rather than the mode. Hell, by that reasoning all serfs and slaves were
middle-class when you average in the vast wealth of the lord with the zero of
the lackeys. Average in one of Reagan's new billionaires with 999 homeless and
you get an "average" of one million bucks apiece. I never mix up middle-class
with working-class. There was a period in the past when many working-class
people made it up to the middle class, but they fell back.

I'm 41, and I've spent a couple of hours a day agitating since 1967. But check
out the new Libertarian Party leadership: they once sent me, along with all
the other delegates, some necessary forms that had to be filled out, but timed
so that they arrived one day before they were due back. When I asked how the
hell we were supposed to get them back in time, I was told that rather than use
a 25-cent stamp, we should "use overnight mail; it's only twenty dollars."
That way they blocked all non-rich Libertarians. These are the tricks people
use to put everything into the hands of the born-rich. Still another tactic is
to conduct communications as much as possible over expensive computer
networks. True Libertarians don't have thousands of dollars worth of computer
crap.

So the new L.P. wonders why it can't get young people, while everything is now
priced to attract the middle-aged who have big salaries. If it had been this
way years ago, I'd never have been able to get in.

Sometimes even I get suckered, though: Around 1980 we were told to try not to
be so radical in the Libertarian Party, in order not wo scare away people. So
I went along and toned everything down. However, they meant to only tone down
the personal-liberty stuff; they went right on being extreme with the
economic-freedom notations. So we weren't supposed to push heroin legalization
as it would frighten people. Yet it was okay to push getting rid of Social
Security even though it conjured up images of old people starving in the
gutter. The result was what the party leadership wanted - the left was sacred
away while the right was attracted.

Because I was thus suckered, I'm incredibly angry. I now scan papers from all
over and whenever I see anyone presenting only the economic-freedom side of
Libertarianism, I jump right in and present the anti-MADD and
drug-legalization aspects of true Libertarianism. I get calls from incensed
pseudo-Libertarians and I tell them to go to Hell and give me my party
back.

The Match contains the first discussion of RENT that I've ever
seen. I always did have trouble with that concept. I still recall the instant
in my childhood when I realized that "my" home wasn't really MY home, since my
father never did and never would own it. It was like the moment I realized
there was no Santa Claus. Worse, in fact, as it undermined my feeling of
security. Here, if you're a renter you're like a serf. The owner of the city
government can just walk in when they want and "inspect" your home. Owners
don't have that problem. There are more and more laws here telling renters
what to do, that don't apply to people who own their own homes. It's just like
having guards tramping through your cell.

The lowest paying jobs seem to be the ones most likely to have urine-testing.
Right now there's a coal mining job available, but that fascist crap is
demanded. No, it's not enough that you have to work hard and dirty for a few
bucks and hour; you must give up your rights, too. Meanwhile, the
pseudo-Libertarians always answer that we have a choice. Yeah, give in or
starve. Of course, the jobs THEY have don't demand such things.

Feminism: I sure don't like its All White Males Have Money attitude. I haven't
got any of that money. But I don't doubt that lots of women have to put up
with lots of crap. I guess that just as rich pseudo-Libertarians are more
visible than real Libertarians, so are monied white males more visible than
poor white males.

Another gripe: "Law Day." It should be Too Many Laws Day.

Banks: when they started stealing accounts that were under $100.00 (they used
to give us interest), the pseudo-Libertarians acted like it was A-OK to do so,
even though the original agreement was to pay us interest, with the rules
being changed unilaterally. Libertarians said they had every right to do it.
These guys are like Stokely Carmichael toward Big Government, but like Stepin
Fetchit toward Big Business.

The richest man in York County is named Appell. The richest man for the last
few generations was named the same. Our Congressman is named Goodling; so have
been the ones before him. But this is America and anybody can be rich and/or a
Congressman; no hereditary dukes here. Nope. Pseudo-Libertarianism refuses to
ever mention items like this.

I used to complain that too many Atheists had a god named Government; well,
too many Libertarians have a god named Big Business. The only jobs a lot of
poor people can get are jobs serving food to those with some money. At the
last state L.P. convention I went to, the spoiled brats at my table complained
all night about the food (I never had such fancy food before), and the
service (even though the poor waiters were moving constantly.) The guillotines
need Rustoleum, I think. I have to hold my temper around these haughty
bastards. They are nothing like the Libertarians of 20 years ago.

The ACLU: It's really the ACRU (civil rights, not civil liberties). A couple
of years ago the York Police took dogs into local bars and restaurants
checking for drugs while people were eating. I sent the news to the
Pennsylvania ACLU. They did send someone out to fight the city government, but
all he cared about were the black bars that were bothered. Not others. He
looked at it entirely in terms of black civil rights, not the individual
liberty of both whites and blacks, not search and seizure violations or
anything else; just that black people were picked on. Nobody else counted.

Reading the last issue of The Match, I loved Dire Wolf's story
about waking up in a hotel room with bullet holes in the wall. The first
Randians I ran into decided I wasn't good material for their cause on account
of my habit of winding up dead drunk in the gutter in strange towns on
weekends. But, had Ms. Rand stated in The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1972,
that "Getting dead drunk in the gutter is a great intellectual notion," I'm
absolutely certain that the curbs would have been lined with Objectivists.

Ever notice that the hardest jobs pay the least money? My father always
asked, "Where do these people get all this money?" I finally found out. Their
ancestors came here when the land was free. They later sold it for capital,
and that capital was passed down.

There's a rich kid in York that I like personally, but he's still a classic
example. He inherited a huge fortune from one side of his family and his other
side runs the biggest bank. He then opened a couple of stores. The paper
said, "It's amazing what he has accomplished by the age of 25." The article
acted like he was Jack the Shoeshine boy turned magnate.

The American People: Now they want Schwarzkopf for President. How they love
Napoleons. How they hate liberty. They want leadership; screw leadership. They
want lawyer shows on TV; screw "laws".

Sure, this is a long letter, but the sold-out Libertarian mags will no longer
publish me. I'd appreciate it if you'd run my address; I'd like to get mail
from some Anarchists.

Walk Karwicki II
Box 2372
York, PA
17405

Some rant! It sounds to me like you don't belong with the Libertarians at all,
but rather, with us Anarchists. ANY political party will always end up the same.
The manipulations and sell-outs of principle are part and parcel of the
authoritarian mentality, which in my opinion has infected right-wing Libertarianism
from the start. -ed